Commerce, GA Another 100 degree weekend. Perfect for racing and cooking omlettes on the 140 degree track. If the weather does not get reasonable soon I may quit this sport until they start putting race tracks indoors with AC.

Ok, I am fighting for 2nd place in this series now, Ryan Coover has first place pretty well locked up. There are 3 of us tied for 2nd.

I actually had some consistent time runs for a change. I am finally settling down and starting to ride the bike like I know how.

The first race I had was my brother Michael. In order for us to line up we draw poker chips with numbers on them. Whoever has the matching numbers race each other. In this instance Michael and I both drew the #5.

I dialed in at a 6.55 and Michael a 6.90. I cut a .092 light to his .211 and flew past him way before the line. So I let off the throttle in order not break out. It did not work, I ran a 6.497. Michael took the win.

This meant I had to go to pay the money to get back in the race. As I have stated before you can only do this if you lose in the 1st round.

We get back in line to draw chips and I draw a #5 again. So does Michael. What are the odds on that? This time I dial in at 6.45 and Michael a 6.90. I cut a .058 light to Michaels .388 (He was finishing his hamburger at the line.) This time when I went past him I hit the brakes and sent him to the sidelines to watch.

The next round I got the bye run.

The next round I had to race a very good friend Jimmy "Cha Cha" Heisler. We race together in the PROSTAR circuit. I dialed in at 6.50 and Jimmy a 6.72. My light was a .070 and his was a .136. I shot past him and hit the brakes before crossing the line. Unfortunately it was not enough and I broke out by .017.

That stopped my run for the "Wally" trophy 2 rounds short. Maybe next year.

The next day was the Snap-on tool series. Here what I did in a nutshell... I cut a -.003 light. So I packed it up and left.

The last points race for Atlanta Dragway is Sept. 22nd. I think I am going to relax from the racing until then.

Loganville, GA I have to thank all of you who have looked at my site each day. It is pretty cool to think that people from all over the world taken time out of their day to look at it.

Here is a list of the places that have been here:

Wiesloch, Germany

Massillon, OH

Austin, TX

Houston, TX

Patterson, MO

Turk, Turkey

Millville, NJ

Las Vegas, NV

New Orleans, LA

Kuwait

England

Kentucky

Puteaux, France

Hackensack, NJ

Harrisons Pocket, Australia (Katrina Durso)

Lilburn, GA

Northport, NY

Atlanta, GA

San Antonio, TX

Seattle, WA

Port Orange, FL

My e-mail address is Paulcav@earthlink.net

If there is anything you think I could add, questions you may have or suggestions in general, do not hesitate to let me know.

My goal is to keep this site interesting to all of you.

Once again, thanks.

Paul Cavanaugh

Loganville, GA Time to get serious. The turbo is tuned in and the motorcycle is doing what it should. The same cannot be said for the rider.

I have two race left for the Atlanta Dragway points series which I am currently tied for 3rd with three other people. (http://www.atlantadragway.com/apcm/templates/results.asp?articleid=11167&zoneid=37&navsource=Summit%20Racing%20Series%20Points) I have a ttached the link to Atlanta Dragway's site showing the current point standings.

The final two races are on these dates:

8/11/07 This race will also give out the "Wally" trophy.

9/22/07 This race also has the "King of the Track" race. The winners of all the divisions race at the end of the night to see who is the King of the Track.

In PROSTAR I have two races left also. This series I have been doing better in which is strange considering there are many more competitors in the Street ET division. I currently am in 3rd place. Here is the link: http://www.amaprostar.com/points/2007/SET.htm

The final two dates for this series are as follows:

9/29/07 - 9/30/07 in Atco, NJ

9/9/07 - 9/11/07 in Gainesville, FL

So in essence all of my series have come down to the wire. I guess it would not be any fun if there was no pressure. NOT!

Commerce, GA I lost track of what number race this was in the points series. I think it was the 6th or 7th. What I do know for sure is that I need to get my ass in gear and win enough points to get into the NHRA Division 2 finals.

I am roughly 60 points out of first with 2 races left. The points leader Ryan Coover is having a great year and is very difficult to beat.

This weekend was roughly the same temperature as Venus minus the ammonia / methane atmosphere. By the time you got your leathers on, you were to tired and hot to walk over to your bike. It really made me consider having my head examined as to why it was so important to ride something that could kill you in heat that could kill you.

The track temperature was 140. What this means to the racer is that your back tire will spin like it is in oil. Which is exactly what happened on my first two time passes.  I had a 7.00 in the first run and a 6.77 in the second. I knew my bike was capable of a 6.2 so I dialed in at 6.6. I figured there was nothing I could do to stop the tire from doing what it wanted.

The first race I cut a .064 light and ran a 6.64. My opposition cut a horrible light on top of breaking out. The next race I cut a .069 light and ran a 6.55 on the 6.60 dial in. Fortunately my opponent broke out worse than I did.

I changed my dial in to a 6.55 and went back to the line to race Howard Bowman on his Harley Davidson. He dialed in at a 9.44 so he got to leave 3 seconds early. I for the first time in my racing career cut a .000 light. Then proceeded to lose the race because I bumbled my start. I ran a 6.95.

That earned me a third place for the weekend.

On the 18th of this month I have another points race and on the 19th the Snap-on tool race.

Indianapolis, IN I needed this race to get back in the points running. Any of you who have been following my blog have seen the steady decline in my wins since adding the turbo. I am coming to the realization the turbos are not meant for bracket racing, they were meant for heads up racing with wild and unpredictable power.

That being said and me being stubborn, I refuse to believe what I have just written.

On Saturday I had 4 opportunities to try and make some semblance of consistency out of my trial runs. If you consider a 10.3, 11.7, 13.5 and 10.02 consistent, then I was perfect.

In my first PRO ET race Saturday night I dialed in a 9.98. Here is how I arrived at that dial in. I called Stephen Hawkings and asked for advice; I heard he was pretty good at math. He told me to average out my test passes, subtract 8 from the average, times that by the rotation per minute of a red dwarf star and that should give me my dial in. Since it was hard for me to calculate the rotation of the nearest red dwarf, I just settled on the 9.98.

All that work turned out to be useless. I cut a -.029 light. What was cool was that I just went all out and ran my fastest pass ever at a 9.698 @144.76. Other than that I had to wait until Sunday for my next 2 races in PRO ET 2 and Street ET.

First thing in the morning it was already 90 degrees, the track temp was 121 and the corrected altitude was 3800 feet. For some people this is important information. For me, it meant I am going to lose 20 lbs. of water weight in my leathers.  I decided to change my dial in to a 9.80 this morning, because of my run the night before.

I stage the bike and I get the first chance to go, I cut a perfect .294 light (perfection is a relative concept.) as soon as my bike leaves I hear a loud pop. It did not sound good. Fortunately as I look down the track, I see I have the win light, so I took my time going down the track to take the win.

I had to get back in line for my Street ET race, but first I had to tighten my new EK chain. This is where the sound came from.

In Street ET I kept the same dial in. This race I actually cut a .019 light and won the race because of another red light. Next I got the Bye run and ran a 9.75 with a .278 light. (I have no clue why all of a sudden I can’t cut a friggin light…) Next run I cut a .054 light and when I hit second gear I heard what sounded like my transmission breaking. Once again the race god was on my side and the other racer red lighted. So I limped down the track again. Straight to the trailer to tighten the chain again.  Someone told me that turbo's stretch chains, now I believe them.

In between these runs I lost my 2^nd PRO ET race.

Next in Street ET I had to race another Hayabusa, this race I actually won by racing. I stomped him by .009 of a second. (Once again, what you consider a “stomping” is relative to the observer.)

In the semi finals I finally lost my connection with the race gods. I lost by .03. It may have had something to do with the .195 light I cut.

So what I proved this weekend is that you can bracket race by never coming even remotely close to your dial-ins.

Next PROSTAR race is in Atco, New Jersey at the end of September.